November 30, 1998

 

Okay, it does not rhyme, we are in North Carolina and it is 70 degrees, there is no snow. But one of the longest standing Christmas traditions for me is the post Thanksgiving, pre-Christmas shopping stories. You have seen them hundreds of them through the years. They all fall along three basic story lines: How much are people spending? Shoplifting and mall safety, and what are this year's "hot" gifts? Spending and gifts change year to year, but one story remains the same: Christmas crime. It is the weekend after Thanksgiving and I have already shot: "Home burglaries are up", "Shopping on Thanksgiving day", "Santa at the Mall", "Furby Fever" and "Refinancing your home gives you more Christmas cash". These stories have been fun, "Furby" and "Refinancing" have a very unique look and feel to them. But it would not be Christmas for me with out "Mall Safety".

Sure enough, the Saturday after Thanksgiving, reporter Todd Hauer and I were driving to Cary Towne Center to shoot "Protecting you, your gifts and your wallet from Christmas bandits while at the mall".

This is a story where it is easy to say, "not again, let's get it over with, FAST!" After we shot the interviews and I started working on video for the story, I found myself having a really good time.

I hid in the Christmas tree and reindeer display in the center of the mall and "spied" on people with my camera. I would watch mothers set their bulging shopping bags on the floor behind them to attend to an irritated youngster in a stroller. I would spy on a sweet grandmother put her purse on the floor as she plotted a strategy to find the next perfect gift for her only grandson. I would peer through the branches at a tired husband plopped down on a bench with a dozen shopping bags around his feet.

But the story needed something more than voyeuristic video of Saturday afternoon shoppers. Then it hit me: steal from a friend. In the sprit of Christmas crime, Todd and I decided to shoot our story with a stolen idea.

Photographer Todd Ziemek at KOAT-TV in Albuquerque started a story on a hot air balloon photographer with a strange clicking sound in sheer darkness, then the blackness opens to daylight with the woman standing over the camera and Todd while lifting bags out of her trunk. We went out to the parking lot of the mall, took all my gear out of the trunk of my car and I looked at the small space. I am not exactly petite, but it was worth a try. I crawled into the trunk and slid to the back, "Wow! there is room for at least two bodies in here, always good to know." Todd Hauer handed me the camera, shut the lid and I was in complete darkness. I could hear him in my earpiece laughing maniacally on the wireless microphone, "Oh Lynn, were driving to Fayetteville!"

After a few takes of Todd explaining to viewers that you should always put presents in the trunk out of harm's sight, we had a good story on our hands.

My challenge to myself this holiday season will be to take the same old boring stories we do every year and spice them up with some new ideas, or some stolen ones.

November 30, 1998

Lynn French